Strange things travelers have tried to smuggle through airports — and been busted for

Drugs are one of the most common illegal items that smugglers attempt to sneak through customs — and some of their methods are about as far from something “Breaking Bad’s” Walter White would think up as you can get. This year, a Guatemalan man was arrested at the Newark Liberty airport with what looked like chocolate chip cookies in his bags — but rather than chocolate chips, they found 118 small “cocaine” chips (little pellets of coke totaling three pounds and worth more than $50,000) embedded in the goodies.

In a smellier bit of news from this year, a man flying into New York’s JFK airport from Trinidad had stuffed more than seven pounds of cocaine into three large hunks of goat meat and shoved that into his luggage; and earlier this year, a man flying into JFK airport from Guyana tried to get 18 pounds of cocaine into the country by hiding it in bags of custard mix.

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200 live tarantulas and other creepy crawlies

This is enough to make any traveler’s skin crawl: In 2012, officials at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport found 200 live tarantulas, as well as a bevy of insects, including crickets and millipedes, crawling around in tubes hidden in a German couple’s clothing and shoes. The couple had collected the insects on a trip to Peru. The Netherlands — like many other countries — has strict laws against bringing wildlife (both plants and animals) in from another country.

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420 pounds of cow’s brains

In 2012, officials in the Cairo airport seized more than 400 pounds of frozen cow brains that were brought in by three travelers from Sudan in large freezer boxes. While it seems like a strange thing to bring into another country, this smuggling move has happened multiple times, as Egyptians like to eat cow brains and the brains are inexpensive in Sudan. Officials destroyed this undeclared contraband.

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Live tiger cub (hidden with a stuffed tiger cub)

A simple X-ray machine thwarted one Thai woman’s attempt to smuggle a baby tiger into Iran in 2010. Inside the woman’s bag was a sedated two-month-old tiger — wedged next to a stuffed version of a tiger. The X-ray machine at the Bangkok airport detected the animal’s heartbeat. The woman denied any knowledge of the tiger.

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Human skull — complete with hair, teeth and skin

Back in 2006, a woman traveling from Haiti to Miami tried to bring a dirty human skull — complete with teeth, hair and skin — through airport customs, only to be busted, as you’re not allowed to bring human remains without a death certificate (and a reason — like it’s for educational purposes) into the country. The head is thought to be from an African-American man who had died within the year. When questioned, the woman, then 30, told customs officials that she had purchased the skull from a main in Haiti and planned to use the skull to practice voodoo.

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Severed seal’s head

It’s not just human heads that travelers hope to smuggle into new areas: In 2004, a biology teacher flying from Denver to the Boston airport was stopped because he had a severed seal’s head in his bag (federal laws prohibit consumers from transporting some wildlife). He told officials that he had found the seal dead on a beach and cut off his head for educational purposes. Officials seized the head.

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Cocaine-filled breast implants

A woman flying from Colombia to Spain in 2012 aroused the suspicion of officials at the Barcelona airport when she gave vague answers to their questions about her trip to Spain; when they examined her more closely, they observed scars and blood-stained gauze near her breasts. The reason: The woman had breast implants stuffed not with silicone, but with three pounds of cocaine.

Shutterstock.com / Fedor Selivanov

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51 live tropical fish living in a specially designed apron

Her outfit looked a little fishy. In 2005, a woman was stopped in the Melbourne airport after officials heard “flipping noises” coming from her body. Turns out, she was wearing a specially designed apron-like garment that held 15 containers within which were 51 tropical fish.

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Live pigeons strapped to a man’s legs

Two pigeons took flight in a whole new way back in 2009, when a young man flew from Dubai to Melbourne, Australia, with the birds strapped to his legs (he put them in padded envelopes under his pants). The man also attempted to smuggle in bird eggs, plant seeds and eggplant; Australian law does not allow such wildlife from other countries to be brought into its country.

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Miniature monkeys in a girdle

This flyer was up to some serious monkey business: In 2010, a man in the Mexico City airport was detained thanks to a strange bulge under his T-shirt. Turns out, it was a girdle stuffed with 18 tiny, six-inch titi monkeys; by the time authorities uncovered this move, two of the monkeys were dead.

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